big city forum

BIG CITY FORUM #13

Big City Forum invites you to a conversation with poets, writers, and seers about literal vs metaphoric space, inscape/landscape, the visible/invisble world,liminality -- "betwixt and between"-- & proximity in motion...


Saturday, March 20th, 2010
4 - 6 pm

Honor Fraser Gallery
2622 S La Cienega Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90034
(310) 837-0191

Featuring:
Mathew Timmons
Elena Karyn Byrne
Vanessa Place
Teresa Carmody
Brendan Constantine

Mathew Timmons is a writer, curator and critic in Los Angeles. He is the General Director of General Projects at various locations including Outpost for Contemporary Art and The Ups & Downs, an installation series, at workspace. He also co-edits/curates Insert Press (w/ Stan Apps), LA-Lit (w/ Stephanie Rioux), Late Night Snack (w/ Harold Abramowitz) and he is the Los Angeles editor of Joyland. A chapbook, Lip Service is recently out from Slack Buddha Press. His first full length book, The New Poetics (Les Figues Press), his micro-book collaboration with Marcus Civin, a particular vocabulary (P S Books), and a chapbook, Lip Music (By the Skin of Me Teeth), are forthcoming. His work may be found in various journals, including: P-Queue, Holy Beep!, Flim Forum, The Physical Poets, NōD, PRECIPICe, Or, Moonlit, aslongasittakes, eohippus labs, Area Sneaks, Artweek and The Encyclopedia Project.

Elena Karina Byrne. Former 12 year Regional Director of the Poetry Society of America, Elena Karina Byrne, is a collage artist, teacher, editor, Poetry Consultant / Moderator for The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, Literary Programs Director for The Ruskin Art Club. Her publications include, 2009 Pushcart Prize XXXIII Best of the Small Presses, Best American Poetry 2005, The Yale Review, The Paris Review, APR, The Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, Poetry, Volt, TriQuarterly, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, Painted Bride Quarterly , Barrow Street, Volt and Verse daily. Books include: The Flammable Bird , (Zoo Press /Tupelo Press 2002); MASQUE (Tupelo Press, 2008) and the forthcoming Burnt Violin (2011), and a collection of essays entitled, Beautiful Insignificance.

Vanessa Place is a writer, a lawyer, and co-director of Les Figues Press. She is author of Dies: A Sentence (Les Figues Press, 2006), La Medusa (Fiction Collective 2, 2008), and Notes on Conceptualisms, co-authored with Robert Fitterman (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2009). Her nonfiction book, The Guilt Project: Rape, Morality and Law is forthcoming from Other Press/Random House. Information As Material will be publishing her trilogy: Statement of Facts, Statement of the Case, and Argument. Statement of Facts will also be published in France by éditions è®e, as Exposé des Faits.

Teresa Carmody is the author of Requiem (Les Figues, 2005), Eye Hole Adore (PS Books, 2008), and the chapbook Your Spiritual Suit of Armor by Katherine Anne (Woodland Editions, 2009). Other work has appeared in such publications as Bombay Gin, Fold Appropriate Text, American Book Review, emohippus greeting cards 1-3, and Drunken Boat. An organizer of the original Ladyfest and co-organizer of Feminaissance, Carmody is co-director of Les Figues Press and co-curator of the Mommy, Mommy! Reading Series in Los Angeles.

Brendan Constantine is an ardent supporter of Southern California’s poetry communities and one of its most recognized poets. He has served these communities as a teacher of poetry in local schools and colleges for the last fifteen years. In addition to this, he has lead similar classes in hospitals and shelters for the homeless. In 2002 Mr. Constantine was nominated for Poet Laureate of the state.

His work has appeared in numerous journals, most notably Ploughshares, The Los Angeles Review, The Cortland Review, RUNES, and LA Times Bestseller The Underground Guide to Los Angeles. New work can be found in the Spring editions of Ninth Letter and The Boxcar Poetry Review, as well as the anthology Bright Wings, forthcoming from Columbia University Press and edited by Billy Collins. His collection, Letters To Guns, was released in February 2009 from Red Hen Press.

Mr. Constantine is currently poet in residence at the Windward School in West Los Angeles and the Idyllwild Arts Summer Youth Writing Program in Idyllwild, California.